


crybaby and stargrazer

by lovebot (bluelions)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26419300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluelions/pseuds/lovebot
Summary: Bokuto, who holds Akaashi in his high school gym, and Atsumu, who feels Osamu in his veins, are always second place to each other on the court. They learn to love in first place.
Relationships: Bokuto Koutarou/Miya Atsumu
Comments: 14
Kudos: 47





	crybaby and stargrazer

**Author's Note:**

> spiker-setter week day three: second
> 
> if you've read my stuff before you'll quickly realize this is much different than usual! all of it takes place when bokuto and atsumu first joined msby together

**_second place is a feeling_ **

when bokuto doesn’t make the starting lineup for the msby black jackals, and instead a mature wing spiker previously from another team takes the spot, bokuto feels it immensely.

not good enough. haven’t grown enough. didn’t smooth enough wrinkles in the velvet of his art.

bokuto called akaashi immediately and spewed all his curdled emotions with the despair of a widow. he curled up into a ball beneath a starchy dorm blanket, phone pressed tight between his ear and the mattress, and cried for the first time in a long while. and akaashi, who has only ever held him in the brightest of lights, let his liquid words pour into all the cracks bokuto left when he graduated. this is where bokuto belongs, this is where bokuto never has to feel like he’s second best.

-

atsumu is all too familiar with the number two. from the day he was born he has made up one half with sharp teeth and the leather scent of a volleyball in his lungs. osamu filled the other half with sharp wit and the sticky sweet sensation of mirrored recklessness. all that mattered was that every day was a competition with each other. he never had to worry about the world closing its hands around their ankles and vaulting them up and above and away. 

so when osamu decides to quit volleyball, atsumu feels for the first time what it is like to freefall from the sky.

after high school, they begin another contest of who could ignore each other the longest. they learned to reel their scope back onto themselves for once: osamu had a career to build, and atsumu had to find his footing in the clouds. atsumu was unbearably, furiously lonely, so their first real life conversation nearly ripped the tears from their ducts. how terribly comforting it is to look your twin in the face and remember that first place should feel like victory in another silly competition.

-

atsumu and bokuto do not begin a love story. all the talent in the world could not prepare them for the arduous road ahead, but bokuto taught atsumu that simplicity can be good enough. bokuto, with his megawatt smile and desire to befriend him, is enough for him now.

they grow into their roles in the team alongside each other, blindly feeling the worn soles of the people they have been in the past.

atsumu: a menace, a captain, a brother.

bokuto: a role model, a star, an abnormal ace.

sometimes, these masks blur over their faces, remnants of adolescence clawing for adulthood. bokuto often thinks he sees fangs jutting over atsumu’s lip, and atsumu swears a dreary storm befalls bokuto every once in a while. they sink back into their bones before anybody thinks to mention them, just pieces of human, pieces of “so that’s who you are”.

later, this will not be enough. atsumu’s penchant for holding hands in the bus and folding bokuto’s jacket will not be enough. the bewildered, breathless  _ yes _ will not be enough. the sky, crinkled and textured, is not big enough for atsumu to fall from twice.

**_second place is a state of being._ **

bokuto doesn’t know if he’s sleeping on the wrong side of the bed, or if he has incurred karma, but the ball doesn’t feel right anymore. it’s foreign to him. he knows the sting of palm against leather better than the warning drowsiness before sickness. there has never been a time when he couldn’t stand comfortably on the court.

well, that’s a lie, there are plenty of times. sometimes they have been mere seconds, others have been half of a match spent on a bench. but, how about the hellish landscape in between the last instance akaashi’s divine fingers set a perfect ball to him, to the blurry, dream-like surrender of this is good enough? how long was that, really? how long  _ is _ it?

bokuto can only be so normal before the recognition of placating himself with atsumu drives him insane. he is terribly in love with his hands, loves to place them over his heart just to show atsumu how it beats for him, but they are tearing him apart piece by shredded piece. it is infuriating to be normal when the world is not.

when bokuto tells atsumu that there is a setter made for him, he is honest. he’s honest in the way that volleyball has taught him: strike hard, strike fast, at every given opportunity.

he doesn’t know why it hurts him when atsumu, who tastes volleyball on the backs of his teeth, is honest right back and tells him there is a spiker born for him.

they stare at each other like strangers across the street, unsure if they've seen this face in a dream or a nightmare. they have painted each other in silver, and it is unbearable to look at, so they walk away.

-

atsumu’s teeth are so sharp they leave bokuto wounded for weeks. he is not apologetic. he is just honest.

-

the sky is unbearably pink these days. in the dawn when they wake up. at dusk when they return home. it’s the color of bokuto’s palm after slamming a cross-shot, and the color of his lips after they kiss.

atsumu finds the rosiest piece of universe and thinks that is where he'd like to fall.

-

bokuto calls akaashi again and wants to tell him he is everything he has ever wanted. his words are unsteady and tilted, like a newborn calf still fresh to the world, and bokuto is unable to articulate himself properly. it's no matter. akaashi understands him just fine.

“you two are fighting for no reason,” he tells bokuto. he sounds tired. bokuto realizes that he hasn't even heard about akaashi’s day, or week, or month.

“we are fighting for a huge reason,” he argues.

“why? does it make either of you feel better to knock each other down?”

“no.”

“then stop it, this isn’t a boxing ring.” bokuto has never treated the court as such. rustling comes from akaashi’s end, and then a sigh that softens the both of them. “i’ve never left you, bokuto-san. the setter i was is for the ace you were, and i am here now for you.”

bokuto swirls his finger in his bedsheets, lets it twirl into a tight whorl. he is only good at gathering things up, he thinks. things like a family in fukurodani, and tears in his eyes. why is it so hard to break things apart? are his teeth not sharp enough? oh, if only atsumu could have left his fangs in his mouth instead of the fleshy belly of his heart.

he doesn’t know where to grip when tearing the player from the person. it is slippery, and they are clamped shut, intertwined and locked together.

akaashi is akaashi, the golden setter he pulled from the earth and whom wrapped his roots tight around bokuto’s back swinging emotions. he is the one who gently nurtured his spine until bokuto could return the same, offer the back and the shoulders akaashi built for him to rest upon. even if bokuto had the strength, akaashi is far too precious to break apart.

atsumu is, well, who knows.

-

osamu is getting tired of feeding him, he can tell, but atsumu doesn't care. he’s bullied his way into onigiri miya several times now and staked his claim on the cushioned barstool at the end of the counter.

“ya got real nerve comin’ back in here,” osamu says.

“yeah, well, too bad.”

osamu’s fingers work deftly. one plate, two plates, a third plate. his customers are happy as usual. he finally gets around to atsumu and slides over a platter of three fat onigiri. it takes two hands to hold and one enormous bite to conclude yes, he has all the nerves in the world.

“it’s not the same,” atsumu tells him.

“i can’t imagine it would be. bokuto’s much better than i was.”

atsumu growls because that’s not true at all. when he looks at osamu, he can pinpoint all the pieces that could not fit in his own body: stocky arms and wide palms for hitting; patience for waiting the rain out; fingers for bringing people together. you need your brother because all of you could not fit into one vessel, and what is a monster with missing parts? too human.

the court consisted of three things up until recently. two teams, one for winning and one for losing. a net that was not meant for catching falling boys. miya osamu. except miya osamu does not understand this, can’t wrap his half-brain around the concept that bokuto koutarou is not part of this equation.

“tsumu, sometimes yer too mean. maybe ya gotta stop tearin’ ‘im apart.”

the problem is atsumu  _ can’t _ . he was made for tearing things down, like competition and card houses and brothers and silver-haired lovers. when he cuts deep inside of bokuto he finds himself tumbling down and down again into a bloody sky, tearing his palms on stars. the gilded throne supposed to catch him is occupied. sitting there alone in the pit, atsumu detonated.

how is he supposed to act nice when the world is cruel to him twice?

“yer dense,” osamu interrupts. a small dish with a single piece of mochi appears before him. “i’m never comin’ back, ya know that. but bokuto’s still bokuto.”

“the fuck do ya mean,” he mutters back. atsumu pinches the mochi between two fingers and shivers as it yields to his gentlest touch.

“i mean on the court, off the court, in yer  _ bed _ . ya know.”

atsumu squishes the rice cake before biting a piece off. it's sweet and tender, earthy and chewy. he considers bokuto koutarou and the delicate pieces atsumu has shredded him into: ace, spiker, outside hitter, teammate, keeper of his heart. they lie limp and bleeding before him. if he could borrow osamu’s hands and press him whole again, would he amount to the variable vacant in his volleyball?

could bokuto amount to the ribs he feels missing and the balance he feels absent when they are together? shining star with smooth skin, void of the craters plaguing atsumu, you know how to slip into the secret crevices notched into atsumu’s side and fill them with starlight and empathy and early mornings in the emerald phantom realm of a dimly lit kitchen. atsumu is overflowing with it and feels empty all the same.

_**second place is what makes first place so much better.** _

second place is uncomfortable for reigning champions of their worlds. it is a snakeskin you cannot shed and, despite the shiny iridescent coats you have donned before, it is this one that sticks to you.

silver snake, you have garnered the attention of many and danced a rattling jig since you've emerged from your shell. it's okay to stop, to rest within the cool hollow of a cracked boulder. you have danced for so long the sun has blinded you.

-

bokuto leaves practice without speaking to atsumu for the hundredth time. he reaches the exit and steps briefly into a torrential downpour before scuttling back to safety. he sighs. his umbrella is sitting at home.

to his side, atsumu approaches. bokuto watches him take one look through the glass window before stepping firmly into the rain. he doesn't look back nor does he run for cover. atsumu simply walks until he disappears in the gray.

bokuto wishes he brought an umbrella.

-

twisting and scraping and itching.

oh, to be torn apart and then whole again. anything to relieve this aching bruise called your body.

-

atsumu doesn’t know how to talk to bokuto. it’s like his muscles have forgotten how to wrap his arm around his shoulders and pull him in, press his lips to the shell of his ear. his tongue is stiff despite his eyes that linger on the pronounced line of his profile.

bokuto seems tired. not that his spikes have been any less fantastic, but the spark in his eyes have succumbed to bloodshot.

they come close. in the locker room where it’s humid with their sweat, they orbit each other when everyone else has left. atsumu reaches out and almost brushes his fingers across his back, but they curl and claws grow out from the knuckle, so close to pricking bokuto’s damp skin. he yanks his hand back before he can notice, and leaves in a hurry.

-

it takes a rainy season and rough nudging before they come face to face again. bokuto had pulled atsumu into a secluded seating area alongside the gym building, a grip so firm and warm he could be willingly led into the ocean.

they stare at each other two meters apart. two because one is too close for distant hearts, because two is all they are, because two is all they see when they rummage through their relationship.

looking is so much more than seeing; no jersey, no knee pads, just the boy they found when they lost everything. it breaks them, but bokuto first.

stardust in his eyes, feet planted firm, he crumbles before atsumu. bokuto tells him of a setter who gave him 120% and led him from shallow waters into the deepest blue. he speaks of his midas touch, the dazzling arc of a perfectly set ball and the gold that blossoms from his palm when he strikes it. bokuto tells him unapologetically of a setter who is his end and his beginning, his court and his bleacher.

atsumu feels his earth cracking, quaking, but bokuto keeps him there, two meters away. so atsumu swallows and tells him of a spiker who was always at his throat and bent him backwards. he recalls their fluid movement, the way they puppeted each other around, the push and pull of a tide collected in the womb. atsumu tells him of a spiker who is there even when he’s alone.

everything begins to trickle forth like a dam broken by a storm. they talk about freefalling and salt tracks and losing so much all the goddamn time. bokuto koutarou, who is only ever good at building and collecting love, and miya atsumu, who is only ever good at picking apart from the bone, spend an eternity confessing their love over and over again.

they tell each other that second place is not good enough on the stage, but out here where the sky is yellow and two meters have become zero, there is only space for each other.  _ this _ is where first place will always exist.

second place is not a feeling or an existence, it’s the grayscale monotony that marks the line between loyalty and adoration, where effort is the bridge between keeping and wanting.

second place is for athletes, but first place is for lovers.

**Author's Note:**

> i spit this out in three days, which is the shortest i have ever written an intentional fic. in that span of time my brain has exploded,,
> 
> i didn't follow any outline or plan anything, so i crammed in like all the parallels and ideas and made things more complicated halfway through- but! i overall enjoyed writing it and how it turned out!
> 
> i think i struggled the most writing bokuto considering it's my first time, but his character is easily among my favorites. timeskip bokuto isn't someone who needs to be coddled by others or /needs/ emotional support, but that doesn't mean he doesn't get upset anymore. he's a crybaby, and it's perfectly healthy and normal. you can work out your own emotions by yourself in your own way!
> 
> and atsumu,,, boy i made you a gremlin. writing the sibling dynamic was hard.
> 
> some other miscellaneous thoughts:  
> \- platonic relationships are great  
> \- communication in a relationship is so fucking important don't be like bokuatsu  
> \- the snake stuff was honestly i don't even know don't look at me i'm just trying stuff out if you can tie it into anything pls let me know,,,  
> \- i think this is why you're not supposed to date teammates but like hey
> 
> anyway! that's all from me. thank you so much for reading, i really appreciate it <3
> 
> catch me on twitter [@softresetter](https://twitter.com/softresetter)


End file.
